North Korea's threats: Five things to know

By Matt Smith, CNN

Updated 9:24 AM ET, Fri March 29, 2013

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Photos:Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with North Korea's first female fighter jet pilots in this undated photo released by the country's state media on Monday, June 22. He called the women "heroes of Korea" and "flowers of the sky."

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Photos:Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military

Kim stands on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in North Korea in a photo taken by North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun on April 18 and released the next day by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Kim scaled the country's highest mountain, North Korean state-run media reported, arriving at the summit to tell soldiers that the hike provides mental energy more powerful than nuclear weapons.

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Kim Jong Un, center, poses with soldiers on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in an April 18 photo released by South Korean news agency Yonhap.

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Kim visits the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 15 to celebrate the 103rd birth anniversary of his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

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Kim inspects a drill for seizing an island at an undisclosed location in North Korea in an undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on February 21.

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Kim speaks during a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released February 19 by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

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A picture released by the North Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appearing without his cane at an event with military commanders in Pyongyang on Tuesday, November 4. Kim, who recently disappeared from public view for about six weeks, had a cyst removed from his right ankle, a lawmaker told CNN.

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Kim is seen walking with a cane in this image released Thursday, October 30, by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

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Kim sits in the pilot's seat of a fighter jet during the inspection.

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This undated photo, released Tuesday, October 14, by the KCNA, shows Kim inspecting a housing complex in Pyongyang, North Korea. International speculation about Kim went into overdrive after he failed to attend events on Friday, October 10, the 65th anniversary of the Workers' Party. He hadn't been seen in public since he reportedly attended a concert with his wife on September 3.

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A picture released by the KCNA shows Kim and his wife watching a performance by the Moranbong Band on Wednesday, September 3, in Pyongyang.

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Kim tours a front-line military unit in this image released Wednesday, July 16, by the KCNA.

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Kim poses for a photo as he oversees a tactical rocket-firing drill in June.

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Kim watches a tactical rocket-firing drill in June.

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A North Korean soldier patrols the bank of the Yalu River, which separates the North Korean town of Sinuiju from the Chinese border town of Dandong, on Saturday, April 26.

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In this photo released Thursday, April 24, by the Korean Central News Agency, Kim smiles with female soldiers after inspecting a rocket-launching drill at an undisclosed location.

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A picture released Tuesday, March 18, by the KCNA shows Kim attending a shooting practice at a military academy in Pyongyang.

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A North Korean soldier uses binoculars on Thursday, February 6, to look at South Korea from the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War.

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A North Korean soldier kicks a pole along the banks of the Yalu River on Tuesday, February 4.

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A photo released by the KCNA on Thursday, January 23, shows the North Korean leader inspecting an army unit during a winter drill.

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Kim inspects the command of an army unit in this undated photo released Sunday, January 12, by the KCNA.

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Kim visits an army unit in this undated photo.

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Kim inspects a military factory in this undated picture released by the KCNA in May 2013.

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Kim visits the Ministry of People's Security in 2013 as part of the country's May Day celebrations.

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A North Korean soldier, near Sinuiju, gestures to stop photographers from taking photos in April 2013.

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North Korean soldiers patrol near the Yalu River in April 2013.

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Kim is briefed by his generals in this undated photo. On the wall is a map titled "Plan for the strategic forces to target mainland U.S."

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Kim works during a briefing in this undated photo.

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In this KCNA photo, Kim inspects naval drills at an undisclosed location on North Korea's east coast in March 2013.

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Kim, with North Korean soldiers, makes his way to an observation post in March 2013.

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Kim uses a pair of binoculars to look south from the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment, near South Korea's Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013.

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Kim is greeted by a soldier's family as he inspects the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013.

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Kim is surrounded by soldiers during a visit to the Mu Islet Hero Defense Detachment, also near Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013.

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Kim arrives at Jangjae Islet by boat to meet with soldiers of the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013.

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Soldiers in the North Korean army train at an undisclosed location in March 2013.

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In a photo released by the official North Korean news agency in December 2012, Kim celebrates a rocket's launch with staff from the satellite control center in Pyongyang.

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Kim, center, poses in this undated picture released by North Korea's official news agency in November 2012.

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Kim visits the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground, under construction in Pyongyang, in a photo released in July 2012 by the KCNA.

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A crowd watches as statues of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il are unveiled during a ceremony in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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A North Korean soldier stands guard in front of an UNHA III rocket at the Tangachai-ri Space Center in April 2012.

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In April 2012, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the sea. Here, the UNHA III rocket is pictured on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea.

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– A closer look at the UNHA III rocket on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea.

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A military vehicle participates in a parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers relax at the end of an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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Kim Jong Un applauds as he watches a military parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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A North Korean soldier stands on a balcony in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers march during a military parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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Soldiers board a bus outside a theater in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean performers sit below a screen showing images of leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers salute during a military parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers listen to a speech during an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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Members of a North Korean military band gather following an official ceremony at the Kim Il Sung stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean military personnel watch a performance in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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A North Korean controller is seen along the railway line between the Pyongyang and North Pyongan provinces in April 2012.

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A North Korean military honor guard stands at attention at Pyongyang's airport in May 2001.

It seems barely a day passes without another North Korean threat, and coming after the December launch of a long-range rocket and a third nuclear test in February, the florid declarations from Pyongyang have gotten the attention of the United States and its allies.

So why now, and how nervous should you be? Here are five things to consider.

It's an inside game ...

Numerous analysts on both sides of the Pacific attribute the aggressive posture is part of an attempt by North Korea's young leader Kim Jong Un to consolidate his power in the reclusive communist state founded by his grandfather.

"First and foremost, it's for his domestic audience," said Jasper Kim, founder of the Asia-Pacific Global Research Group in Seoul, South Korea. "Because without the support of the military, he won't be around for much longer. And so he has to bolster his support with the brass."

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Peter Hayes, director of the San Francisco-based Nautilus Institute, says there's also a debate going on inside the North Korean leadership about the country's future as a nuclear state.

One side wants "to be a nuclear-armed state that is able to behave like the recognized, legal nuclear weapons states and play their game and turn the tables on them," Hayes said.

"That is, in my view, what is going on in the test and the rocket firing," he said. "The other policy current is associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the international faction of the Korean Worker's Party, which is to negotiate our way out of this mess."

A recent statement from the foreign ministry declared that North Korea would not give up its nuclear "sacred sword" as long as the United States remains hostile -- a conditional statement that signals Pyongyang may be willing to give up the bomb under the right circumstances, Hayes said.

"They say a lot of these kind of things, so there's a tendency to treat it as the kind of stream of crazy you get from North Korea," said Jeffrey Lewis, East Asia director at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "But this is not normal. It is more vitriolic."

A recent statement by a top North Korean general specifically talked of hitting Washington with a nuclear weapon in the event of war. "That's a pretty direct threat," Lewis said.

The North Korean rhetoric ramped up after the February 12 nuclear test and the U.N. sanctions that followed. Meanwhile, Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" that North Korea has carried out some sort of military provocation within 14 weeks of every South Korean presidential inauguration since 1992. South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office on February 25, "so start the clock," he said.

"What is not normal is that the backdrop for this is about a year of very unpredictable behavior by a new leadership, and a sequence of provocations that is more concentrated over a period of time than we have seen in the last 20 years," he said. "So in that context, although to the average listener these threats may seem like it's just the North Koreans firing their mouths off again, for those of us that look at this more closely this is a little bit different -- and more concerning."

Their nukes aren't useful ... yet

Most observers say Pyongyang is still years away from having the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead on a missile. While its scientists managed to lob a small satellite into space in December, putting a working device atop a missile, launching it and hitting a target with it is vastly more complicated, Hayes said.

But Lewis, who also runs the Arms Control Wonk blog, said the North Koreans may have tried to "skip a step" with its early bomb tests and build one small enough to fit on a missile. That might explain why its first two were relatively unsuccessful.

"I think it's plausible to think that they have a warhead design in which they are confident that's under 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) -- still not as small as you need to put on a missile and launch it to the U.S., but closer than they were a couple of years ago," he said.

And while Washington hasn't come out and said it, Lewis said the March 15 announcement that the Pentagon will deploy additional ground-based missile interceptors on the West Coast may signal that the North Koreans have deployed a long-range missile they put on display at a parade in 2012. Lewis said the announcement was "mostly for show," but could reflect real U.S. concerns about those missiles.

"If you're going to spend $1 billion to deploy interceptors, they ought to come right out and say it," he said.

But nukes aren't everything

North Korea also has plenty of conventional military firepower, including medium-range ballistic missiles that can carry high explosives for hundreds of miles, as well as thousands of cannons, rocket launchers and tanks massed across the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South. Seoul is within range of many of those weapons, and the North has threatened before to turn the southern capital into a "sea of fire."

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A North Korean bombardment could kill tens of thousands of people in Seoul before South Korean and U.S. retaliation could smash those guns, Hayes said. But that would essentially launch a new Korean War -- one he said would end badly for the long-impoverished North.

"They have less than 30 days of fuel and no ability to refuel," he said. "They've got to fight a very short war before they're just walking to where they're going to fight."

Pyongyang keeps its forces massed on the DMZ "precisely because they're weak," he said.

There are other avenues. When computers at South Korean banks and broadcasters began to crash on Wednesday, suspicion initially fell on the North. South Korea has accused the North of similar hacking attacks before, including incidents in 2010 and 2012 that also targeted banks and media organizations. Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert with the Council on Foreign Relations, said the hacking is consistent with previous North Korean actions.

For years, Pyongyang has made deals to curtail its nuclear and missile work in exchange for economic aid. Those deals have fallen apart when the North went on to conduct other tests. The six-party talks among the North, its Asian neighbors and the United States fizzled in 2007, and the North's first attempt at a satellite launch scotched a previous U.S. plan to trade hundreds of thousands of tons of food for a halt to weapons work.

"I think the problem right now is that you cannot engage them directly after they have done a series of ballistic missile and nuclear tests, and we are going into a period of sanctions now through the U.N. Security Council resolution," Cha said.

"They don't want to give up their nuclear weapons. They want to be able to have their cake and eat it, too. And U.S. policy for the past quarter-century has been these things are all on the table if you are willing to give up your nuclear weapons," he said. "And so this is the problem. This is the dilemma right now."

Meanwhile, the United States is going ahead with joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises amid the North Korean threats, adding a special little twist -- overflights by massive B-52 bombers. It's a move reminiscent of the worst days of the Cold War, and one Hayes called "tactically smart but strategically stupid."

"The North Koreans will have noted it for what it is -- an affirmation of the fact that we're playing the nuclear game with North Korea, and that's the last thing we want to do," he said. "I think our posture is either to persuade ourselves that we're hanging tough, which is a domestic game in Washington, or to reassure our allies and dissuade South Korea from going it alone with nuclear weapons."

But both Hayes and Lewis said there's little to lose by continuing to engage the North.

"We do what we can on defense, and if the North Koreans want to bargain or haggle, I'm prepared to do that," Lewis said.